


outside the long pavilion

by sannlykke



Series: SASO 2017 [10]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Taisho Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 23:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11588181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sannlykke/pseuds/sannlykke
Summary: on midorima, akashi, and the seas and continents separating them; on fragments of letters and longing in a time where silence can stretch for months on end.





	outside the long pavilion

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from ["farewell song"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbie_\(song\))
> 
> this is set circa early 1910s; midorima is a medical student and akashi is studying abroad in england.

_I’ll be back by the turn of spring._  
  
Shintarou looks at the letter, already yellowing, crinkling under his fingers as he stands up and places it back into his chest. The soft smell of incense burning in the windowsill has slowed to barely a trickle as he reaches out to pluck the stubs out of the ashes. Time to scour his collection again.  
  
When he walks out of the room he takes the scent with him, leaving behind nothing but the faintest trace of an imprint on the chair.  
  
-  
  
 _Akashi,  
  
Are you well? What are you learning there? In your last letter I am reminded of the course we took together three years ago…  
  
  
  
(I wish I could be there, as well.)_  
  
-  
  
Cambridge is months’ journey away, by boat all the way around the edge of the Pacific, down to Tonkin and circumventing India, up the Suez and across the Mediterranean, over France and the Low Countries and crossing another narrow strait. Shintarou is needed at home; his father’s practice is low on help, and there is nothing an eldest son should say against that. The clinic is not far from where his university dormitories are, and it is there he spends his nights. He will one day take over, after all.  
  
As for Akashi, his fate is somewhere else.  
  
Akashi’s letters are sparse and short, a result of distance, work, and an unsaid longing Shintarou cannot bring himself to describe. Shintarou knows he is studying law, knows he’s been inducted in one of the elite societies, and despite the tensions in Europe seems to be doing quite well for himself.  
  
Still, something is missing.  
  
-  
  
 _…Considering the distance between us it would not be out of the ordinary for me to feel the draw of home. Still, my studies have been going well, though some irritations that are out of my hand remain. I’ve read in the papers about the lack of medical personnel at home…_  
  
-  
  
It is inevitable that fate would blow both ways, Shintarou knows. He can only do the best he can every day, but sometimes even his best is not enough. Perhaps it is a little heartening to hear that Akashi has, for the first time in his life it seems, experienced the same.  
  
 _I hope to see you soon_  are words he does not write, tries to not think, whenever he catches a glimpse of the ships at dock when he accompanies his mother to the fish market on weekends.  _I hope to see you safe and sound._  
  
The salt in the wind stings his eyes even behind his spectacles as he stands near the docks, looking far off to sea. He’s staring at the wrong direction, surely, but he cannot help it.   
  
 _I’ll be back,_  Akashi had said, and one spring had come and gone. It is not unheard of for their people to cross the ocean and never again set foot on their ancestral land. A silly thought—he shakes his head. Of course Akashi is coming back. He is needed by his family, by the company his father runs—  
  
 _—by me._  
  
-  
  
 _…is doing well, though I return home much too tired as of late. But it is good training, as you will most likely say. The university is in recess for the winter, so I stay as long as I can. The new assistant boasts of his prowess with shogi, but I doubt his abilities will keep me occupied for long…_  
  
-  
  
The storms of late winter do not make for good travels. Shintarou reads the papers religiously each morning, his heart stilling each time he makes note of a wreck, a loss, an otherwise perfectly-built vessel gone missing. He remembers to light the incense in the small shrine in the back every day, and one stick on his window.   
  
Akashi does not send any more letters. It is a bad winter, Shintarou reasons. He had not sent many letters last winter, either, his time having been consumed by the move to campus and subsequent activities. It must be that he’s too busy, and even if he’s sent a letter, the snow must’ve slowed down the delivery.  
  
That thought sinks into his skin, his bones, every fiber of his being. But the university opens again, and the clinic prospers, and soon enough it is no more than a dull ache in the back of his mind.  
  
-  
  
 _Please, come home._  
  
-  
  
Sunday finds Shintarou at the docks again, although this time his mother had not asked for his company. He wanders the length of the wood, mindful of where he steps (it is so easy to fall in, he’s seen it happen), pausing to inspect a basket of live crabs, a carton of eel. The morning’s fortune had been favorable—though Shintarou has no idea what  _look to spring_  might mean, the vaguest of phrases—but he could stand to be careful.  
  
He walks, and walks, away from the hawkers and the noise, and soon enough he is at a clearing from where he could view the ferry port a ways from their side of the bay. Shintarou looks on with wonder—he has been at sea before, though that particular vessel had only carried him as far as Izu.   
  
And then, when he looks to the sea, a passenger ferry—large, graceful, its side painted with a floral emblem Shintarou recognizes as the premier charter company in the city. He cannot make out its name from so far away, but—   
  
 _Look to spring._  
  
—he finds himself doing something unusually rash.  
  
-  
  
 _Sometimes I go down to the port to look at the ships. It’s silly, for someone with little time to be spending it in a frivolous way. The mind can do many things, but not this. And yet…I wonder, were I to look at the sea, would I see you there…_  
  
-  
  
The ship, the  _Spring Equinox_ , is larger than any he’s seen in his life, glistening on the blue water like a pearl among the waves. Shintarou feels out of breath—it had been the rickshaw driver who had ran for most of the way, until Shintarou had taken it upon himself for the last leg. Maybe it is for the best that there is (hopefully) nobody here who would recognize him, his neatly combed hair a mess and his clothes most definitely wrinkled.  
  
It is a large crowd. Shintarou scans it with his not inconsiderable height, and upon seeing the Akashi family driver feels his heart still.  
  
He looks to the ship, where the passengers are starting to disembark.  
  
-  
  
 _Sometimes I dream, and in those dreams you are there. Of course, you are in England, and I am here. But in a dream…one could surmise it would not be an impossibility—_  
  
-  
  
Shintarou first sees red hair, then a long coat, then the suitcase he is carrying. There must be others, waiting to be disgorged from the ship’s cargo hold. He looks up, and Akashi looks down at the crowds, and then—he is looking at Shintarou.  
  
He’s never seen Akashi surprised before.   
  
As much as his feet are already shaking, Shintarou makes himself wait. Be still. He sees the driver walk towards Akashi, only for the redhead to hand him the suitcase and lean in to whisper something in his ear. He must be exhausted, Shintarou knows—immaculate dress and hair aside, there is a hint of tiredness in Akashi’s eyes even after they had been set aflame. And yet, and yet…  
  
“Was that a play on words?” Shintarou says, his first words after so long jumbled and perhaps a touch immature, but Akashi’s hand is already on his arm when he looks up. “Akashi—“  
  
“I can’t see that far into the future,” Akashi replies. He is a little older, a little taller, edges (never round to begin with) sharpening, but his smile for Shintarou is soft. The crowd does not pay any attention to them, having dispersed to reunite families, settle scores, welcome people home. “It is not a bad one, is it?”  
  
Shintarou swallows, touching Akashi’s face hesitantly.  _You’re not a dream._  Akashi’s eyes flicker to Shintarou’s bandaged fingers briefly, as if to savor the constancy of seeing such a thing again. “You’re here.”  
  
“I’m here,” Akashi says, leaning in. He smells like the sea, salt and brine, like anyone else—but none of it matters when Shintarou feels the familiar weight of arms around his neck again. “Here where you are.”


End file.
